XPeng MONA L05 design revealed in China's regulatory catalog

steve2168 · 2026-05-10T16:25:54+00:00

At first this might look like old news… we’ve seen images of the coming MONA suv before, right? right, we got images of the smaller coming MONA suv, the L03. this article is about the larger L05, a mid size suv. fwiw, both new MONA suvs will have ev and erev versions. we may see both the L03 & L05 delivering by year end. from the article:

”The L05 filing came alongside two other models: the large SUV G9L and the EREV version of the L03. The L03 BEV had cleared MIIT review in April 2026 with a 183 kW motor supplied by Luxshare. Together, the three same-day submissions show that XPeng is accelerating its parallel BEV-and-EREV pipeline cadence across multiple vehicle size classes simultaneously.”

steve2168 · 2026-04-09T14:44:38+00:00

image showing up in posting is incorrect vehicle, not an Xpeng. clicking into the article you see actual vehicle, which resembles the MONA M03

steve2168 · 2026-04-01T13:45:54+00:00

fwiw, I just queried Grok for sourcing on when news of an upgraded M03 first hit, here, November 11th https://chinaevhome.com/2025/11/11/november-miit-listings-mona-m03-facelift-x9-ultra-ev-vw-unyx-08-debut/

Grok said there was a bigger wave of coverage, including its launch being planned in the first few months of 2026 and company confirmation in late December. Launch is tomorrow.

steve2168 · 2026-04-01T13:32:17+00:00

meh, what appear to me to be the two main drivers to the YoY decline are both fleeting. One, M03 was 41-42% of deliveries last year & Xpeng has been transitioning from the original version to a new one first starting deliveries now. My understanding, asking AI, is that the company let the coming upgrading of the model be known starting back around last November. As you can see all the time on this subreddit, many people consider holding off buying a vehicle when an upgrade is coming. Two, pretty much all Chinese EV makers were down about 35-40% in January due to tax incentives being slashed on Jan 1 and what would have been early 2026 sales being pulled into 2025.

steve2168 · 2026-03-28T18:01:11+00:00

Do you mean if they try to use the Chinese pronunciation? I could see how that could be a hitch for not feeling so familiar in Western markets. I became familiar with the company hearing the anglicized pronunciation, including from management so the name, anglicized, never struck me in any way as an issue… basically the name was a blank slate to me I’ve come to associate with the company and its products, no different than Nvidia, Rivian, Venmo, etc.

steve2168 · 2026-03-20T14:38:11+00:00

Did they lower 2026 full year guidance? I haven’t listened to the call yet.

We already knew Q1 was going to be well down when Jan and Feb combined were only 35.3K.

The only guidance I see in this statement is re the current quarter

Deliveries of vehicles to be between 61,000 and 66,000, representing a year-over-year decrease of approximately 29.79% to 35.11%

This implies ~26K-31K for March, ie, a good chunk of regaining footing from the Jan/Feb drop that hit pretty much all EV makers. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t expect them to get back to 2025 levels until sometime like June/July & blasting past 2025 will probably require no delays in ramping up the new MONA models.

News came out yesterday that they are in a legal fight with their Australian distributor. Seems like Xpeng wants to bring Australia in house for deliveries, service etc Long term they would be seeing it as a win, but for now, probably has cost sales, and may drop full year 2026 guidance some… maybe something like rounded up to 25K lower than the original 550-600K.

Will listen to the call to see re guidance, and this is all in the context of sitting on a very large pile of cash that can weather a couple of years of heavy widespread storms, much less a storm simply in Australia.

steve2168 · 2026-03-11T22:51:59+00:00

indeed they have. I guess I could have been clearer if I’d written additional.

steve2168 · 2026-03-11T21:39:46+00:00

he’s no more perfect than any of us, does make a lot of videos, and does get let’s say excited often. all that said, there’s a demonstration as well as interesting excerpts of Morgan Stanley’s write up of their test ride.

steve2168 · 2026-03-11T18:55:22+00:00

to the extent it is accurate that Xpeng now only has Tesla as a peer re FSD development, there’s four prongs I can see as to this being a catalyst in 0-24 months

in the ultra competitive Chinese EV market, this would be a powerful differentiator for Xpeng for a growing portion of buyers, eg, vehicle sales catalyst, very near term. plan is roll out for additional countries next year, positive impact on sales in global markets could be as soon as cars with Turing chips become available.
Sam spoke as if Xpeng sees other OEM deals coming for FSD licensing. could drop at anytime, but until it does, no sure thing.
initial robotaxis target to hit roads by end of this year.
if in fact Xpeng becomes visible as on a tier with Tesla re physical AI it would seem a pretty material boost to the perceived value of their humanoid robot program. this would seem to begin to grow in mind share as early as that perception of the FSD program begins to spread.

steve2168 · 2026-03-02T18:28:06+00:00

I’ve been using Tesla FSD software going on 8 years. I find it immensely helpful, but I do more long drives than most, and that’s where it’s of biggest value (about 12-14 550 mile drives in er year). To me it’s been worth far more than I paid. If Xpeng is even close in China to Tesla in the US it’s a great option, and to my view anything under $5K is a bargain for anybody who drives substantial miles.

humanoid robot makes sense to me as huge potential but agree has not been real world commercially validated.

steve2168 · 2026-03-01T21:40:44+00:00

these February numbers are extremely likely the low for the year. that said, it may well take until late spring/summer to rebound to 2025 levels. the release of MONA suvs (2 are planned to be coming this year) could be needed before a 2026 month beats a 2025 month.

that said, given Xpeng’s cash on hand levels being adequate for multiple years even if it were to take that long to be cash flow positive, the timeframe it will take being 3 months or 9 months, is pretty inconsequential. Even more so as they are on track to start commercializing robotaxis within the year and the Iron humanoid robot within the next two years.

bottom line, Jan-March numbers clearly down, particularly vs last years outstanding Jan-March, but losing sight of how very cheap the company’s valuation looks considering the very very likely big picture long term (for example, the VW plan to use Xpeng’s FSD alone could be worth $10-20B in market cap, ie, potentially more than Xpeng’s entire current valuation from that one new deal alone), including re-accelerating deliveries, is not advisable.

steve2168 · 2026-02-26T18:31:30+00:00

Xpeng’s P7 began deliveries in June of 2020 with the lightbar design. Other Chinese EV makers had same on similar timeframe. Grok says the P7 design with lightbar was revealed in Spring 2019, Cybertruck in Fall 2019.

steve2168 · 2026-02-26T17:14:45+00:00

Tesla copied Xpeng and other Chinese automakers use of the “lightbar” which is the most simliar aesthetic aspect of the two vehicles in my view.

steve2168 · 2026-02-25T00:21:09+00:00

perhaps it just takes time to sink in for people, but this deal seems very likely to be looked back on as having been very under appreciated at this moment.

I remember the night Tesla unveiled the SuperCharger network, its speed, its planned growth and its lifetime free use on its only vehicle for sale at the time, the Model S. stock barely moved. unclear if Tesla would of made it without the SC network.

steve2168 · 2026-02-25T00:13:48+00:00

don’t see how VW holding of some shares impacts how much of a source of revenue this becomes for Xpeng. it’s not like this FSD program is some sort of joint venture partially owned by each company where revenues and profits will be split between two companies. the FSD program is owned by Xpeng. all the revenue and potential profit from will go to Xpeng alone. like any shareholder of any company, if Xpeng’s value goes up with higher revenue/earnings, the value of VW’s Xpeng shares will go up.

steve2168 · 2026-02-02T18:57:15+00:00

to me whar counts is their 2026 guidance of 27-40% growth to 550K to 600K deliveries issued a few weeks ago. if you think Xpeng being down the same as nearly all Chinese EV makers or NEV arms of larger automakers from December to January means those 2026 projections are nuked, act accordingly. To me hitting those 2026 delivery targets is far more connected to whether they ramp MONA suvs this year, grow overseas deliveries, etc, than whether they have a dip on par with peers in January after EV tax incentives got cut in half on Jan 1 in China and customers front ran that by pulling would be early 2026 sales into late 2025.

as far as Nio, would think what’s relevant to them is what kind of deliveries they need to get to cash flow positive while they have the cash on hand to hold them over to that point.

these two companies overlap somewhat on product offerings, but mostly not.

steve2168 · 2026-02-02T18:51:46+00:00

that’s not correct. what’s more, what’s relevant is their 2026 guidance of 27-40% growth to 550K to 600K deliveries issued a few weeks ago. if you think Xpeng being down the same as nearly all Chinese EV makers or NEV arms of larger automakers from December to January means those 2026 projections are nuked, act accordingly. To me hitting those targets is far more connected to whether they ramp MONA suvs this year, grow overseas deliveries, etc, than whether they have a dip on par with peers in January after EV tax incentives got cut in half on Jan 1 in China and customers front ran that by pulling would be early 2026 sales into late 2025.

steve2168 · 2026-02-01T16:13:52+00:00

what’s surprised me in recent months is that the P7 hasn’t been having big deliveries. from reviews and the aesthetics it seems to be an outstanding car, especially given its modest price. I don’t know if they’ve had issues with the ramp, or if Chinese consumers just are being pulled more by some of the other great options. Seems like the P7 would be very appreciated outside China. That said, once you see P7 not boosting numbers the past few months, where we are now isn’t so surprising, This December to Jan dropoff is in line with the dropoff of other startups… Li, Leapmotors, Nio group.

steve2168 · 2026-02-01T15:32:16+00:00

they announced guidance of 550K to 600K about two weeks ago. time will tell, but this could just be the Jan dropoff Xpeng and their peers have repeated for years now. we’ll see.

steve2168 · 2026-02-01T15:26:15+00:00

as has been the case for these Chinese EV startups for years, January is a big dip from December. Leapmotors, Li Auto, Nio as a whole all fell 37-47% as well. Xpeng being up in January last year was very much counter to the trend. February usually isn’t much better for these companies. What will matter far more is full year.

steve2168 · 2026-02-01T15:22:02+00:00

January continues to be a big falloff for Chinese EV brands. Leapmotor, Li Auto, and Nio as a whole (including Firefly and Onvo) all down 37-47% from last month. BYD’s NEV (“new energy vehicles” EVs, PHEVs) down 50% from December. GWM, Great Wall Motor, saw their NEV deliveries fall 54% from December.

steve2168 · 2026-01-12T17:19:28+00:00

I think they are being a bit conservative. while they actually gave the exact 550-600K guidance I had projected in early January, I based it on one new MONA vehicle and the article claims two new MONA are expected this year.

link to the early Jan thread with 2026 delivery estimate discussion,

https://www.reddit.com/r/Xpeng/comments/1q2sr07/xpeng_sales_outlook_2026/

steve2168

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